


Sing You Happy Birthday.

by laylee



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laylee/pseuds/laylee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did she sing you Happy Birthday?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing You Happy Birthday.

"I was going to sing you Happy Birthday."

Dan looked at Casey and smiled for the first time all morning. Actually it was closer to a smirk, but that was better than a frown. "Did you ask permission first?"

Casey smirked back. "Nah, I was just going to wing it. Sometimes you've gotta live recklessly."

"Hmm, Casey McCall, master of dangerous living."

"All the way, baby."

"Yeah, right."

"I was, really," Casey insisted, becoming serious again.

Dan sighed and the crappy feeling started to return. "I know."

Casey's eyes drilled into him as the brief moment of levity dissolved. "It was a rotten thing to do Danny."

"It just happened, okay?" Dan said, growing exasperated. "These things happen, Casey, and I'm a free agent, you know. No strings attached to me last time I looked."

"Well, I hope she was worth it," Casey snapped.

Dan could think of no witty comeback for that one.

Casey rose from the desk and grabbed a sheaf of papers. "I'm going to see Isaac," he said and made for the door.

Dan stared at his retreating back then threw his pencil across the office.

~*~*~

The clock had ticked over to midnight and after days of anticipation, it was finally Dan's birthday.

There had been cake and champagne in the studio after the show. Dana bought the champagne; Casey bought cake. Mocha Almond with chocolate filling and lots of chocolate frosting.

"I'm particular about cake," Casey stated when he volunteered for cake duty. No one dared to contradict him.

There were crumbs scattered across the studio floor when they finished and Natalie had a smudge of frosting on her cheek. Tequila shots and nachos at Anthony's followed and by one-thirty they were all pretty drunk and not caring that they had to be a work by at least noon the next day.

Casey sidled up to Dan and leaned into him. "I'm gonna sing you Happy Birthday," he said and smiled a big toothy smile.

Casey was teetering slightly to the left, so Dan knew he was pretty far-gone. It made him grin and he leaned against Casey as well, enjoying the warmth and the closeness. I'm beginning to like this birthday, he thought, and leaned a little more.

Then Casey did something completely unexpected and planted a big sloppy kiss on his cheek and pressed even closer. Dan went bight red and everyone laughed because Dan and Casey were drunk and they thought they were just acting up for their amusement. Only Dan could feel the bulge of Casey's half-hard cock against his thigh and knew it wasn't a joke.

~*~*~

"She was okay," Dan said when Casey returned to the office two hours later.

"Just okay?"

"We were both pretty drunk."

"So that's your excuse?"

"I'm not making excuses, Casey. It's just the way it was. And it is my birthday."

"And that always justifies a cheap fuck."

This time it was Dan who made the abrupt exit from the office and he didn't look back to see if Casey was throwing any pencils.

~*~*~

She had been leaning against the bar, looking slightly disheveled in a dark gray business suit. Anthony's was very busy, even at that time of night, and it appeared she had been waiting quite a while.

"It might help you whistled," Dan had said.

She looked over at him and smiled. "Don't I know you?"

"I'm Dan Rydell."

"From that sports show, right?"

"Yeah, that's it."

She was in her mid-twenties maybe, pretty but not quite beautiful, with a ripe, voluptuous figure beneath her conservative suit. She had pale-blue polish on her fingernails, Dan noticed, and tendrils of naturally curly blonde hair fell about her face. Dan wanted to twine a lock around his fingers just to see what it felt like.

"I don't know how to whistle," she said matter-of-factly and smiled a bit more.

"I do," Dan said and let go an ear-piercing whistle that made everyone look. But it was his birthday and he was drunk and he didn't really care.

She laughed, but Jack wasn't so amused.

"You want to keep drinking here, Dan?" Jack asked as he finished with his customer.

Dan shrugged and nodded a little, saying, "It's my birthday, Jack," like that was supposed to justify everything. Then he turned to the woman with the curly blonde hair and said, completely without meaning to, "Buy me a birthday for my drink," and they both cracked up.

~*~*~

Casey didn't talk to him again until five minutes past three. He hovered at the door to editing, looking tall and slightly anxious.

"I don't know why I'm acting like this."

"Then that makes two of us," Dan replied evenly without turning around.

"You can do what you like, Danny."

"I usually do."

"I don't know why I'm acting like this," Casey said again.

Dan swung his chair around to face him and wished he would go away. "Then why are you?"

"I don't know--" Casey faltered for a moment and dropped his head. "Fucked if I know," he muttered irritably and left.

~*~*~

He ignored the way Natalie winked at him when he returned to the table with the drinks. He took no notice of the victory smile Elliot flashed at him. Dana was deeply engrossed in a conversation with a guy with red hair, so he didn't even bother looking her way.

But he could feel Casey's eyes boring into him, even when he was waiting at the bar, and that he couldn't ignore.

"She looks nice," Casey said as he accepted his drink, his bland voice belying the fierce expression in his eyes.

"She bought me a birthday for my drink," Dan responded jovially. But Casey didn't laugh because the moment had passed and anyway, he had to be there.

"I'm still gonna sing you Happy Birthday," Casey said, his gaze unwavering as he took a swallow of his beer.

"That's 'cause it's my birthday," Dan pointed out as his eyes strayed to a curly blonde head sitting on the other side of the room.

~*~*~

Dan caught up with Casey in the tape library an hour later.

"It was nothing," he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans and hoping he looked suitably repentant. "It was just sex. Don't tell me you've never been there."

Sitting cross-legged on the floor with a list in one hand and a tape in the other, Casey looked up at him thoughtfully and pursed his lips.

"I've been there," he admitted, somewhat ruefully, and the name 'Sally' was uttered by no one.

"It was just sex," Dan said again, hoping that if he said it often enough, Casey might stop looking at him with bitter, disappointment in his eyes.

"Was it any good?" Casey asked coolly.

"We've been there before," Dan reminded him.

"And yet we're going there again."

Dan looked down at his sneakers and shrugged. "It was just sex."

"Did she sing you Happy Birthday?"

Finally Dan found a reason to look Casey in the eye.

"No."

~*~*~

She had large soft breasts that felt nice in his hands; dips and curves in all the right places. She liked to be on top, which was okay with him, because there was something comforting about the fact that he could lay there and watch as she threw her head back and nibble on her bottom lip with slightly crooked teeth. He knew he was drunk and going home with her was stupid, but he did it anyway. It was his birthday, he reasoned, and you've got to get laid on your birthday.

She didn't sing Happy Birthday to him, but she made some noises that sounded like she was coming, so he thrust a little harder until he came as well, grunting out something when he did. It might have been her name, it might have been someone else's; he really wasn't sure.

When they were done, she didn't seem to want to snuggle or anything and she rolled over and fell asleep before he could ask if it was okay. It was slightly disconcerting, but he'd had too much to drink to turn it into a thing. So he pulled off the condom, tossed it onto the floor and rolled over as well, putting as much space as he could between them as he pulled the covers up to his chin.

Sleep didn't find him immediately. Instead, he lay there and thought about other birthday fucks he'd had and how, on the surface, this one didn't seem so much different. Only back then, he didn't have to contend with the expression of wounded bewilderment Casey had been wearing as he left the bar with her. He sighed and wished he'd had more to drink so he could blot this episode out mind completely.

At some stage he went to sleep.

~*~*~

"Of course she didn't sing me Happy Birthday."

"Then what did she do?"

"Casey!"

Casey threw his hands in the air. "Hey, I'm just asking."

"And I wish to God you wouldn't."

Casey let his hands drop and his shoulders slumped. "I was going to sing you Happy Birthday," he said, not a little pathetically.

Dan resisted the urge to roll his eyes and squatted down before him.

"It's still my birthday," he reminded him gently. "For another..." Dan checked his watch, "six and a half hours."

~*~*~

He woke at nine, alone in bed and with a pounding headache and feeling like he'd just made a monumental ass of himself.

He found her in the kitchen, sitting at the table as she drank coffee and listening to the radio. He stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking in the harsh morning light and she offered him some coffee.

"I have to go home," he said without preamble. "I've got to get to work."

"Okay," she answered blithely and took another sip from her cup.

They didn't exchange numbers. He didn't want to and fortunately neither did she. He wondered if she would ring her friends later in the day and boast about her celebrity conquest, then decided he didn't really care. So they parted company with an awkward peck on the lips and he went home to shower and change.

When he staggered into the office two hours later, the first thing he saw was Casey glaring at him.

"Have a fun night?"

"It's my birthday," Dan responded weakly and waited for the storm.

~*~*~

Pushed against a wall in a darkened corner of the tape library, Dan moaned as Casey's mouth ravaged his and he rubbed against the hand shoved inside his pants. They didn't know when Lila, the lovely woman who ran the library, was due back from her break. Or if one of the P.A.'s was going to come looking for a tape of the nineteen eighty-seven Super Bowl. They couldn't quite bring themselves to care.

Make-up sex had never been so fraught.

"Sing me Happy Birthday," Dan rasped when Casey's mouth left his to trace a ragged path down his neck.

"In a minute," Casey muttered, suckling at a spot below Dan's left ear before he bit down and licked.

Dan groaned and buried his head against Casey's shoulder, his fingers digging into his ass to draw him closer.

"Sing to me," he insisted, his body pulsing with the need to feel this man's skin next to his and his cock so hard it hurt.

"In a minute."

"Now, Casey!"

Dan nearly screamed when Casey pulled back and blinked, licking at his kiss swollen lips in a slow, deliberate manner.

"Is this just sex?" he asked and Dan wanted to hit him.

"It's not just sex," Dan hissed and leaned in to reclaim Casey's mouth.

But Casey wasn't quite finished and he pulled away again. "Tell me what you want."

"You," Dan ground out, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth as Casey's hand tightened around his cock, "I want you."

"Why?"

"_Why_?" If Casey wanted to see him cry, he'd soon get his wish.

Those long, fine fingers tightened on him a little more. "Yes, why? Why me and not her? Why not all those other women"

His hand tightened again and Dan was almost sobbing.

"Because I need you! I don't need them, I need you. I can't do it without you!" he wailed and yanked Casey's head down to kiss him again.

"It's not just sex," Dan said weakly when Casey began to slide down his body. "It's never been just sex."

"I know," Casey mumbled into the hollow of his hip.

Dan felt his stomach flutter as Casey hooked his fingers around the elastic of his boxers and tugged them over his erection. Casey kissed his hip and his belly and trailed his lips along the line of hair leading from his navel to his crotch. He breathed into his pubic hair and ran his tongue over the tip of his cock and Dan cried out roughly as a jolt of pure sensation ran through him.

"Happy Birthday to you," Casey warbled, moments before his lips closed around him and Dan melted bonelessly against the wall.

Dan moaned as Casey's tongue swirled around the head of his cock, his teeth scraping along the shaft and his hands fondling his balls. All Dan could do was surrender to the moment, his eyes sliding shut as his fingers buried themselves in Casey's hair. Nothing else mattered except the warm, sucking heat of his best friend's mouth and the pull of his fingers and oh God, if this wasn't turning out to be the best birthday he'd ever had.

Dan banged his head against the wall when he came, and he had cover his mouth with his hand to stop himself from bellowing something about God and Casey at the top of his lungs. When he finally managed to get himself under control, he peeled open his eyes and looked down. All he could see was Casey staring up at him with big brown eyes, looking smug and amazed as he licked his lips clean.

"It's not just sex," Dan croaked again, once he'd regained control of his brain.

"I know it's not," Casey replied, steadying himself against Dan as he got to his feet. He reached down and pulled up the boxers and jeans that were hanging around Dan's knees. "And one day we'll figure this out,"

Dan touched Casey's face, making him pause as he helped get Dan's clothes in order.

"Do you really want to?"

"Maybe not," Casey admitted, taking Dan's hand in his own and kissing his palm. "Maybe never."

Dan leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips.

"Never is a long time, my friend. And it's still my birthday."

Casey checked his watch. "For another four hours and forty-five minutes."

FIN


End file.
